


The Girl Who Was Calm

by borderlinecritical (skulls_and_stripes)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Autistic Pearl (Steven Universe), Autistic Spinel, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Pearl POV, Second person POV, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/borderlinecritical
Summary: Rose-Pink Quartz Diamond is a good person. You know that. It's been drilled into your head like basic arithmetic and your knowledge of the colour wheel. Rose is a good person. And, it doesn't matter if she's breaking you stuff, it doesn't matter if she's yelling at you until you're shaking and crying, it doesn't matter if you've trained yourself to recognise her from miles away and you start quivering from the moment you see her, because she is a good person.The only thing that makes you feel like you're allowed to question that, is the girl who was calm.
Relationships: Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	1. The Girl Who Was Calm

**Author's Note:**

> okay uh. im just gonna say something right off the bat here. IF YOU SHIP PEARL/ROSE DON'T EVEN FUCKING TOUCH THIS STORY. i was going to leave it as "oh you can read just don't come and defend it in the comments" but you know what? you fuckers lost your right to even look at my fics the last time you came onto my vent fic screeching in the comments about how "rose would never do that!" 
> 
> i dont even care whether its canonically abusive or not or whether you're bad for shipping it (i mean, in my opinion it is and you are, but thats beside the point) because i need to vent and i need to do it without getting yelled at. and im not even going to try pretending i support you guys at this point because, back in my "ship and let ship" phase you all literally spewed abuse apologism at me for a canon compliant vent fic and honestly no matter what you ship, im not gonna support you after that bullshit.
> 
> (also i havent seen the movie so spinel is probably ooc. dont criticise this i wrote it to vent)

You meet the girl who was calm on a chilly August night.

You hug your jacket a little closer to your chest. It's adorned with a sheet music pattern, and that's the reason you're still wearing it even though you got it at some point in maybe the fifth or sixth grade, and now you're a freshman and it barely covers your chest and arms. Musical theory has been a special interest of yours for as long as you can remember, but, it's not like you can trust your own memory. There's still some purple hair on it from your disastrous attempt at playing Twister with Amethyst earlier, but that fell apart pretty quickly. Instead, you started playing Monopoly, a game you've never tried before tonight.

You're here for Jasper's birthday party. Jasper is Amethyst's older sister, and you got invited despite barely knowing her because Amethyst had gone to a different high school to you and she's been desperate for an excuse to hang out with you since you first parted ways at the end of the eighth grade. There's an obnoxious girl sitting across from you ranting about how she's the _best_ at Monopoly. Amethyst says she's here because she's a family friend.

You happen to know that Jasper has other family friends that will probably be arriving soon. But, you try not to think about that.

* * *

In stark contrast to the way you hesitate when saying your own name out loud in case you're somehow _wrong,_ because it's always felt so wrong coming from _her_ lips, everything you know about Rose, you know as absolute fact. She calls you creepy for it, and you sort of believe her, but it's not like you're stalking her, you just listen when she talks to you. You can remember every detail of her life that she mentions -- you're always acutely aware of how her latest Dungeons and Dragons campaign is going, and what she's annoyed about at work, and whether her autistic sister's fish are dead or alive.

Oh yes, she has an autistic sister. It's one of the first things you find out in your freshman year, when you first meet her, and she says it like it's a badge of honour, like she's so _good_ for dealing with that. And, she _is_ good for dealing with that. Because she's not, like, the sibling equivalent to one of those _autism parents,_ no, she's an _ally,_ and sometimes when you talk about being autistic she says stuff like "I wouldn't know, since I don't have autism" like she understands that she can never fully understand the way you see things, and that is just so _amazing,_ and --

Maybe the bar is a little low. But, if you raised it any higher, than none of your classmates or peers would qualify as _allies,_ and you'd have to face the fact that they all see you as a _freak,_ and we can't have that, now, can we?

So, Rose-Pink Quartz Diamond -- and the fact that she has such a long name is inconvenient to others but that's just because they're all too _shallow_ to see how _beautiful_ her full name is in all its glory -- is a good ally. And, she's a good _girlfriend,_ and a good person. You know that like the back of your hand -- Rose is a good person. That's a fact that you feel like you can say in absolute certainty within moments of meeting her, and nobody's ever said it except you, but you feel like it's been drilled into your head as strongly as basic arithmetic. 

Rose is a good person.

Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you can't make yourself believe otherwise.

* * *

You finally meet Rose's sister tonight, at the party. She walks in, or more accurately she _bounces_ in, halfway through your game of Monopoly. You're at your last few dollars when she comes in and honestly, it doesn't help matters. She's a small girl, with her hair in two cute buns, dyed pink like her older sister, but straightened instead of curled. Amethyst, who already knows her, waves politely. Peridot introduces herself, and so do you, shyly. 

The girl introduces herself as Spinel.

She's not interested in Monopoly. Neither are you, really, to be honest. You're losing horribly, and you don't know enough to determine whether that's because the _point_ of the game is to demonstrate how nobody can truly _win_ under capitalism unless they're lucky enough to start off with an absurdly large amount of money like the banker does, or just because you're not very good at it. So, Spinel eagerly gets out the Twister, and states her intentions to start another game of it once you're all done with the Monopoly.

Amethyst nods a long, then rolls her dice. Spinel, grinning widely, takes them as they land, before anyone can see the numbers on the faces. Amethyst gives her a blank stare, disapproving and annoyed but not malicious. "Spinel, give that back."

Spinel immediately does, and she's polite enough to roll them properly in the process. You privately think that she has an impressive understanding of boundaries.

* * *

Rose always respected your boundaries, of course. 

Because, if she _didn't_ respect your boundaries, then that would be abuse, absolutely _textbook_ abuse, and even worse than the fact that you would have to be dumb enough to stay with her despite that is the fact that if she abused you, that would make her an _abuser._ And you _know_ that she's not an _abuser,_ you know that she's a good person, and you know that she respects your boundaries. You know that she respects your boundaries because at one point, you come out of your sex ed class blushing like mad and you say, "Unconscious people do not want tea," as a piece of surrealist humour that also serves as a funny reference to a video you just watched in which tea was used as a metaphor for sex to explain the unambiguity of consent, and she laughed before explaining that she had also seen the video, and she too understood that unconscious people do not want tea.

Consent 101.

And, _sure,_ there's that one time you bring a comfort object to school, and she kicks it, as a joke, and it breaks, and you cry and beg her to apologise and she never does. That's kind of disrespectful toward your boundaries. But, that doesn't really count, because, well, it's a dumb boundary to have. You're _weird_ for not liking when people touch your stuff, you've known that ever since the first grade when you yelled at a well-meaning girl for touching a ball you'd dropped to throw it back to you, and the resulting bullying and gaslighting was so intense you went through a period of genuinely believing you had anger issues. 

So, really, you can't blame Rose for that. You can't blame Rose for anything. It's all your fault.

* * *

That moment with Spinel, as she gives back the dice, is the calm before the storm. Except, you're not calm, because some part of you _knows_ that moderate-support autistic sixth graders don't generally show up at parties alone, and that Rose is closer to Jasper anyway, and really it's just a matter of time at this point.

You're still shocked stiff when she enters. She stands in the doorway, like there's nothing wrong, like she has no _idea_ about the way your breath catches in your throat and your heart skips several beats just from the sight of her. You can't breathe.

Right at that moment, you land on Amethyst's property and go bankrupt. You pick up your piece with a shaking hand, and say, a little more loudly than you normally would, _"Fuck_ my life." You let Amethyst and Peridot and Spinel believe that you're just talking about the game. 

But, you can't fool Rose. You could _never_ fool Rose.

* * *

You love Rose, you really do, and every word you say about her reflects that. You don't let a single joke at her expense slip into day-to-day conversation, not even about things that she kind of deserves a bit of shit-talking in relation to, like the time she deliberately broke something that belonged to you and refused to even fake an apology. You talk about her like she's an angel, because she _is,_ and you could never _dare_ compare yourself to her except to self-deprecate and to draw attention to the contrast between her perfection and your, well, _you._

Rose, on the other hand, says many words against you. They're all jokes, of course, except for when they aren't, except for that "calm down!" that hurts a little _too_ much, because of _course_ you're excited about music class, and you don't know why you're not allowed to express yourself, and, well, if you're being honest the jokes _also_ sting a little, or a lot, and you know she's very busy but you wish she would prioritise you _once,_ because you always make her your top priority in everything and it kind of hurts when you get flaked on a date you'd been planning for weeks and later find out that the reason was that she impulsively decided she wasn't that into it, but you can't blame her for hurting you, repeatedly, because you never actually told her not to, did you?

So, in the school holidays, you decide to tell her not to.

You text her three separate times, on three separate days, because the first two times she ignores you, and you resist the temptation to text her again and again until she answers, because despite the pressing knowledge that you have to put 110% into every relationship because you can't expect them to actively choose to talk to someone like _you,_ and if you stop being clingy everyone will just abandon you. But, you text her once a day, and if she doesn't answer your just fucked, because you're already creepy enough for wanting to hang out with her.

The third time, she answers. You try to talk to her, about how unappreciated you feel, but she responds with a series of excuses and does nothing but talk about how she can't _always_ hang out with you, in a way that sort of makes you feel like you're a useless lapdog following her around. You can't even explain what's wrong, because she keeps completely misinterpreting the problem, making excuses, not even _listening,_ and you lose your shit.

You tell her that she needs to listen when you try to talk to her about a problem, and then apologise for telling her that. You apologise again a few days later. She ignores it.

Normally you meet up with Rose in the morning, before your first period class, and she goes to a lot of different places before class starts so you sort of just run around like a pathetic little lapdog searching for her, but when those school holidays end, you can't find her in the morning on the first day. You're not surprised, really -- the first day is always more chaotic. Early in the morning, you have a school assembly explaining that your school has gotten table tennis tables installed near one of the basketball courts, and Rose is one of the student leaders that was selected to supervise them for the first few days, while the kids are still getting used to it. So during your break, you approach her near the tables, and get yelled at.

You're already on the verge of an anxiety attack and you burst into tears the moment she raises her voice. If she notices, she sure doesn't care. She yells at you until you're a sobbing, shaking mess, until you run away with your tail between your legs, until you can barely talk to explain the problem to Garnet. Then, you take a deep breath, and you plan.

The first thing you plan is your suicide, knowing you can't live without her. After a moment, you decide to also plan a potential way to get her to forgive you, just in case not all hope is lost. You write out a two-page apology letter, and get a mutual friend to give it to her because you're scared of getting yelled at, and the whole time you know you're an entitled bitch for trying to get her back, that she shouldn't even look at your apology unless she has stockholm syndrome, that expecting forgiveness after the shit you pulled is borderline abusive.

She forgives you the day after the letter, two weeks after the initial fight. She approaches you and explains that she read the letter despite your numerous disclaimers at the start of it that she didn't have to read it because you don't even deserve the time of day, and that you were _really_ rude to her and it was justified for her to yell at you and ignore you, and you can be friends again, _but..._

You hold your breath. She grimaces. You burst into tears. She tries to comfort you, in that patronising way of hers that always makes you feel like you're bad for feeling bad.

"I just, I want you to know," she explains. "...you can be a lot to handle, is all."

You stare up at her with tears in your eyes. "What does that even _mean?"_

She says she doesn't know, but you do. You know that it's a threat, in a way, a reminder that if you ever pull this shit again, she won't put up with you, because you're already so much to handle and you should just keep your head down and stay out of the way. But, more importantly, it's true.

That night, you go home and grab a knife from your kitchen and carve several lines into your arm, like the edgy whiny teenager that you are. Over time, you'll learn to find more sophisticated methods, sharper blades, bottled hand sanitiser that prevents infection while adding an extra layer to the sting. But for now, this is enough. It's just what you deserve.

* * *

Rose looks at you like she's genuinely _angry,_ points a finger like she's talking to a small child, and says, "You _need_ to calm down."

You're not sure that you do, honestly. Sure, it's a little hard to breathe, and you think you might throw up with anxiety, but neither of those things are actually that unusual for you, and you're not outwardly anxious. You suppose you must just be disproportionately angry about the game, so you internally reprimand yourself.

The party continues. Amethyst manages to get her hands on some coke that ostensibly has alcohol in it, and it's so weak that even tiny fourteen-year-olds such as yourself probably wouldn't get _drunk_ off it, and you think it's probably a placebo anyway, but you have some, because you _need_ something that might help your anxiety.

You spit it out right away, because the taste is so bitter and unfamiliar to you. The worst part is, you're not sure whether the bitter and unfamiliar part is the coke or the alcohol. You've never been one for soft drinks, or hard drinks for that matter. You stick to tea and coffee, and water of course, whenever you can.

Nobody else is as _weak_ and _pathetic_ as you are, however. So despite Spinel's law-abiding objections, those of you who are high school aged continue drinking.

* * *

You start feeling suicidal during that first intense fight with Rose and you're not sure you ever really stop. There's a few days of sheer euphoria after she forgives you, when you don't feel depressed at all until late at night when you start thinking about things, but after that, it just starts getting worse and worse. You try to vent to Rose at one point, and get yelled at, again. 

You know, intrinsically, that this is _your fault,_ because nothing can ever be Rose's fault. Rose is a good person. You _know_ that Rose is a good person. And, as a good person, she would never hurt you repeatedly on purpose, so really if she keeps hurting you then it's your fault for not explaining what she did wrong. So, you write another note. 

It explains, in detail, that she doesn't respect your boundaries, and you _know_ that's not her fault but you really need to have a serious talk before you can continue the relationship or you'll just keep getting hurt. Then, as an afterthought, you add the most _vile, horrible_ thing. Minutes after writing it you know that you're an _entitled bitch_ for wanting it, that you're probably abusing her, that you should really just fucking kill yourself already before you abuse anyone else --

The thing you request, basically, is this: _You should apologise for making me feel suicidal and then yelling at me when I was suicidal before I apologise for being suicidal._

Not worded like that, of course. You would never dare actually say it in a way that pins the blame on her. But, in a nutshell, that's what you say.

She doesn't even read the note this time. Aside from a single phone call a month later that serves no purpose except to mock you for still being visibly upset at the breakup, and the usual pleasantries she exchanges at the party tonight, she doesn't talk to you anymore. You're left behind.

* * *

You're quite sure by this point that it's just a placebo, but you still beg Amethyst for more alcohol, anything to make you forget, because your naive fourteen-year-old brain thinks that will _work,_ that alcohol will make you feel better. Amethyst smugly tells you that it's all hers.

Spinel frowns. "You guys aren't allowed to drink. You're not eighteen yet."

"Hmm," says Amethyst, in mock surprise. "Well, how 'bout I do anyway?"

"But it's against the law."

Rose glares at Spinel. "Calm _down,_ Spinel," she says, and she says it again a few more times, and you look at Spinel, and she is _perfectly calm,_ and, to use a rather outdated metaphor, that's when the puzzle pieces click into place.

You look at Spinel. Spinel looks back at you. You begin to wonder whether Rose _is_ a good person, because right now all you can see is this tiny, vulnerable autistic girl that's being gaslit to hell and back, by her own sister, and it's all so much more clear now, how she treated _you,_ and then you're _worried,_ because if a few months of Rose-style gaslighting and manipulation made you suicidal then what has over a decade of it done to that poor girl?

You catch yourself, of course. Rose is not an _abuser._ Rose is a good person, and you're a bad person for ever thinking badly of her. And, Spinel obviously _isn't_ calm, even if she looks like it, and neither are you, because otherwise Rose wouldn't be telling either of you to calm down. And, really, you should just shut up and keep your head down and accept the fact that all you are and all you will ever be is _petty_ and _dull_ with the absolute _nerve_ to doubt Rose.

So, you do just shut up. You don't keep your head down, though. You can't quite meet Spinel's eye.

You come close, though.

You come very close.


	2. oh for fucks sake

you know, i was gonna start this "chapter" off with an obligatory self-deprecating joke about "an entire chapter just for author's notes? what is this, wattpad/ff.net/any other site full of 12 year olds" but you know what? if writing bad fanfiction with an entire chapter just for the author's notes is immature, and that means i'm immature for doing so when it's clear it's the only way i've got a chance of getting you guys to respect my boundaries, then you guys must be **genuinely** the most immature little shits i have ever had the displeasure of seeing with my own two eyes.

this is a _vent fic._ it has been up for, as of me writing this note, less than 24 hours. i have already gotten three comments that served no purpose except to tell me that i'm bad for not shipping pearl/rose. two of which were from the same person, and a person who has done this exact shit before with another fic. oh yeah, i remember you. i'm not gonna name the other person's name unless they want me to because they only _bad_ thing they did is deliberately violate my boundaries over a fucking fanfiction (and i guess i should probably consider that to be pretty bad on its own, but i don't, because _newsflash,_ i've been abused!) but grey2004? if you're reading this? yeah, i see you. just like i see all the other shippers that came onto this fic and are now planning a horrific rant in the comments.

fuck you all. genuinely, _fuck you all._

i'm gonna get this out of the way: yeah, i'm an anti shipper. i don't talk about it often here, because this site is full of anti antis and i don't want to start a debate with every author i see who writes a fic i dislike. so, i privately think, "hmm, i hope that person is portraying that ship as being a bad thing, but i don't want to read to find out" and move on with my life. 

the thing is, that author's note i had at the start of this fic before? telling pearl/rose shippers not to interact? that had **nothing** to do with ship discourse.

it doesn't _matter_ whether or not rose is canonically an abuser and it doesn't _matter_ whether you're a bad person for shipping prose, okay? that's not what that author's note was about. yes, i do have my own opinions on it, but my own opinions aren't even relevant here. if you ship pearl/rose, if you think rose isn't _actually_ abusive, or that she is but it's still fun to sweep all that under the rug because she's cute with pearl, then -- look, i don't exactly agree with you on that, and i can't say i won't judge you for it, but i'm not going to force you to debate it. we can agree to disagree. we **cannot** agree to disagree on **my** boundaries.

i didn't even put that note in because i hate shippers, or anything. i put it in because i didn't trust you guys to not hurt me. whether it's okay to ship pearlrose or not, the fact of the matter is that _i do not feel safe_ with shippers reading my fanfiction portraying pearl/rose as abusive, because i know from experience that you guys will absolutely not hesitate to throw abuse apologism at me in order to defend your latest Problematic OTP.

that's all it was, okay? i'd love to say that i don't think shippers are bad people, but honestly, my own experiences have made it almost impossible for me to believe that. but i will say that it _literally_ does not matter whether i think you're bad people. i'm a stranger on the internet, you can move on with your lives and learn to cope with me disliking you. point is, i didn't put that "pearlrose shippers don't even fucking touch this story" note on at the start because i think you're bad people, or that you dont' deserve rights or you should be censored or that you're predators or any other crazy bullshit you're going to accuse me of just because i don't like a ship. i put it there because i **knew** that somebody, probably the same somebody who screeches "dont hurt real people over fiction!!!" if anyone dares criticise a piece of media ever, was going to go ahead and tell me that all my trauma is fake and my method of venting is invalid, over a pair of cartoon characters.

and guess what? i was right! it didn't even take you fuckers a full day to prove me right!

i wrote this fic to **vent.** that should deter you enough, honestly. it doesn't matter if nothing after season 3 happened and rose was still the literal angel she was played up to be in the first few seasons of the show, you should maybe see that something is a vent fic written by a traumatised 15-year-old and take that as a sign that maybe this isn't your chance to talk about how this is _so_ out of character, or how the fic itself is nice but trying to have boundaries so you don't get attacked by shippers again is _so_ immature. maybe you should all just respect my boundaries and leave me alone.

gotta say, though, this is _really_ persuading me to see the problems with anti shippers, huh? yeah, i'm _really_ seeing how it's bad to hurt real people over fiction. and obviously the people who are hurting real people over fiction are not the ones that deliberately went out of their way to make a traumatised 15-year-old feel uncomfortable, but instead the anti shippers, who are hurting real people over fiction by *reads smudged writing on hand* ... not shipping a pair of abusive cartoon aliens.

anyway um. obviously i cant stop anyone from reading my fics. i cant even stop them from commenting because this stupid website has no block button. i can just hope that you guys will for the love of god **respect my boundaries** by not jumping into the comments to yell at an abused teenager for writing a fic you didn't like about a pair of cartoon aliens. please, guys, show some compassion. it'll go a long way.

p.s. grey2004, if you're reading this ... i really admire your efforts, but you do not need to defend rose. this fanfiction isn't hurting her. rose is not a real person. and if she was, she wouldn't want to fuck you.


End file.
